Ouida
Feminine
Ouida was a pen name, and it began as a child's mispronunciation. Maria Louise Rame could not say Louisa as a small girl and produced something like Ouida instead; she kept it, wrote more than forty enormously popular novels under it, and put the word into the naming pool of two continents.
How old is the name Ouida?
Ouida first appears in US birth records in 1887 — 138 years ago. The typical Ouida alive today was born around 1929, making them about 96 years old. About 1,400 people named Ouida are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Ouida most popular?
Ouida peaked in 1933, reaching #533 nationally. See the whole 1933 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
From Louisa to Ouida
The story of Ouida
Ouida wrote extravagant romantic novels that sold in enormous numbers through the second half of the nineteenth century, lived in Italy with a great many dogs, spent everything she earned, and died poor. Her books are barely read now and her name outlasted them: it appears in American birth records from the eighteen-eighties, peaks between the wars, and belongs to families who had read her or heard of her. Very few writers have put a name into circulation this directly, and fewer still an invented one.
Meaning
Not established
The name has no meaning because it is not a word — it is a record of how a particular child said Louisa. That account comes from the novelist herself and from her contemporaries, and it is one of the very few name origins that can be traced to a single person's speech at a specific age. Louisa itself descends from Louis and means famous in battle, but the mispronunciation carries none of that across.
How the name formed
- Louisa
- Ouida
Pronouncing Ouida
WEE-duh
WEE-duh, two syllables, stress at the front, the ou said as a w. First-time readers try oo-EE-duh or OY-duh, and neither is used — the ou is doing something English does not otherwise ask it to do.
Nicknames for Ouida
Moderate
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1887
- Most girls named
- 1921144 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #533reached in 1933
- Change vs 1986
- 0.0%6 in 1995, from 6
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Ouidas among us
people named Ouida are estimated to be alive in the US today
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
Questions parents actually ask
Fashion outlook
Ouida sits outside the current charts, and that is its own kind of answer: naming cycles can only date the names they carried up. A name this rare has no decade stamped on it — it cannot go out of fashion, because it was never in.
Based on 146 years of naming cycles. How we read them
The trade-off
- The origin is documented down to a single child's speech, which almost no name can claim.
- Ida is available inside it as a complete and familiar name.
- It is genuinely rare, so a person carrying it will not share it.
- The ou is unguessable and the name is mispronounced on essentially every first reading.
- Almost nobody now knows the novelist, so the story has to be told rather than recognized.
- It belongs firmly to an earlier American century and has not returned.
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Ouida
Feminine
Frequently asked
- How many Ouidas are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 1,400 people named Ouida are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Ouida in 2025?
- Ouida is rarely given in the US today — it does not rank in the top 2000 girl names.
- Will my child share the name Ouida with classmates?
- Ouida will almost certainly be the only one in school.
More O names
The most-given names starting with O, all years combined.
Olivia#1 · Opal#423 · Olive#197 · Olga#3167 · Ollie#2276 · Ora#3712 · Ola#7885 · Ophelia#264
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Ouida? See the current top 100.
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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